I’ve only seen Big Buck Bunny is YouTube but I think it’s really amazing! I like the way the fluff of the bunny was shown and the smooth flight of butterfly as well. I also love the way they made the shadows and other stuff. All that was done using Blender, an open source 3D animation software.
The story of Big Buck Bunny is amusing. In the beginning you see the bunny waking up to a nice day. He really enjoys the sight of flowers and a lovely butterfly. However, three rodents try to ruin his day and all hell breaks loose. You see the bunny coming up with schemes to make sure that the three rodents would have a dose of their own medicine. ;) Kudos goes to the team who came up with this project! From the story to the animation and music, everything went well together. Hooray for open source!
Some people think that open source software can’t really come up with something that is at par with proprietary software. Probably because of experiences with formats not being recognized by open source software due to the closed nature of other formats. However, the software by itself, as seen in this example, could be used to create something awesome. If only people would give it a try and work hard on their projects. I am sure that comparison cannot be avoided but hey look, open source software such as Blender would give individuals a shot at coming up with something great.
If you want to have a customized Linux distribution, you are probably excited about something like Nimblex 2008. This awesome Linux distro works for people who just want to try it out. You could just download the 200MB ISO or you could add other packages you want.
The release has the following features:
Firefox in kiosk mode which can be booted from the CD
Bluetooth!
Compiz was cleaned
updated software so you have the latest versions
includes VirtualBox for more fun
This is something I look forward to downloading tonight or this weekend. At least it’s a relatively small download compared to the others. (Heh. I think that Nimblex as a name is perfect for this distro in this regard.)
I am more excited trying out Linux distros this small because it would be faster for me to download it and hopefully it will be a good copy and nothing will go wrong.
Precedent Technologies aims to release a low-cost desktop computer which will have Intel Atom CPUs and Mandriva as a bundled operating system. This machine will hopefully be released this September. They plan to release other computers to run Linux.
Now there is another company who is seeing Linux as a potential source of income and they’re teaming up with Mandriva. I should keep an eye on news like this. I wonder if companies like Precedent Technologies and Dell have other contributions to open source aside from the means to let users have the option to adapt open source software in their daily lives. What I want to ask is if they also contribute to the development of the software that they run in their machines and in what ways.
I also wonder how consumers will be receptive to this newer release of computers from companies including them. I think that getting more ways of distributing Linux is good but I also hope that companies making a profit from bundling Linux with their machines would give back to the community somehow. By having some of their software engineers commit to the repos of the various open source projects, helping fund the projects and also by ensuring that their customers have a good user experience with their company’s products.
I got a video in the Matroska file format — something that doesn’t usually happen to me. I would often get files in avi though. Or mpeg. I know I used to watch anime with mkv extensions but recently I haven’t. I did a fresh install of Ubuntu Hardy Heron so I didn’t have VLC yet. I tried looking for matroska gstreamer plugins, etc. on Synaptic and yet I found none. :( I was able to play it using Mplayer but I also wondered what else I could use to play the video. I installed VLC via Synaptic and voila~! I could watch the video already.
If you are new to Linux and are just using the applications installed by default, you might encounter some difficulties. But if you’re the type who will search for the packages which will let you do whatever you want, you’d be fine. Totem seems to lack that ease of use when it comes to new users or even not-so-new users. Mplayer might have an interface which isn’t quite as pretty as Amarok, Rhythmbox, VLC, etc. but it’s a very nifty mediaplayer.
Read up on enabling Compiz even if I am on an extended desktop setup.
I lost the DVD of SymphonyOS that I burned and my sister already cleaned up the computer’s hard drive so I don’t have that anymore. But I could probably download a copy of wattOS while in the office, after hours.
I’ve been wanting to play around with OpenSolaris too. So that’s been on my to-do list. I should also install Windows XP for the days my mom and sister need to use my laptop, somehow.
As for mkv files… somebody gave me a video and it’s in mkv. I haven’t been able t view that yet. I still have other things to do, that’s why.
And Compiz - I am curious if I will be able to make it work, somehow.
WattOS is the distro that is said to check out for those who want to go light. Old computer (refurbished ones included) should be able to function in the same way as common computers system should. You could even check out the variants of WattOS:
wattOS - it uses the GNOME desktop environment
mwattOS - it uses XFCE
(mu)wattOS - it uses minimal GUI and it’s said to be ideal for kiosks and old systes
As the name implies the project wants to let users “tweak the power consumption and processor performance of their system in an easy point and click fashion.” This project is cool because they also want our feedback so that they could make sure that wattOS will be a distro that is relevant to our needs. This is probably going to be good for organizations and households which use old hardware and have been having troubles with the newer releases which seem to require so hardware upgrades that users can’t afford to make.
Personally I find it odd to see a Linux distro CD/DVD being sold for a really high price. I don’t mind it if it’s basically the cost of shipping a CD or a DVD and the cost of burning a copy because that’s been downloaded from the internet and there is cost in terms of bandwidth. I also don’t think there’s something wrong if developers do sell installers of the Linux distro they worked on if it’s to fund further development of the software. However, I find it wrong if people would sell a downloaded distro for something really expensive when they weren’t the ones who made it and they’re just doing it for profit. Why? Because they didn’t even have a major part it the creation of it, only the distribution. And if there’s not even an added service like tech support or something like that, why bother buying a copy of a Linux distro installer? Just ask someone else who has a copy to give you one and use that one instead.
I don’t know about you but if buying a copy of Linux distro installer is waaay expensive, I’d think about it really hard before getting it. What about you?
I have been biased towards Debian-based apps because of Apt, the package manager. I saw one of my co-workers trying to install an application from a downloaded package. Though it’s not really that difficult to install a downloaded package, sometimes you might encounter quirks like missing dependencies. In case you didn’t read the download’s instructions properly, it might not work because of the dependencies that have to be satisfied.
Installing the packages via apt is not scary because you could search through the packages via apt-cache search. So even if you’re not that familiar it should be ok. I find it better to use it because I could leave it up to apt to get the packages and their dependencies too. There are some drawbacks though. For one, the packages in the repository are not always the latest version. This might be a problem if you need certain features of the application you would like to install.
For new Linux users, this is probably one of the easiest ways to go about installation of packages rather than compiling from source. I personally would rather use an application that’s in the repositories so that I won’t end up confused with the dependencies. But, there are cases where it’s better to compile from source or use a package already. Hopefully everything works perfectly after the install. :)
I was using widgets on Windows before but I didn’t know about screenlets until recently. I am not big on widgets but there are a few useful ones for me. Enter screenlets. They’re basically like them widgets except that you could find the basic screenlets package in the repositories. ;)
One of the screenlets I like is the system monitor. I didn’t realize that I’ve been filling up my hard drives with too music and images. At least now I know. Waaah~! There are clock screenlets too if you want a different kind of clock to look at apart from the one on the panel. Even Vladstudio wallpaper clocks are possible with the screenlets.
You could either download it from the screenlets website or you could download it via the Synaptic package manager.
It’s common to see gumball machines, etc with slots for 25 cents. Would you think a log in screen could probably have the same function? ;)
I read about an amusing Easter egg on Ubuntu Tutorials and I tried it out the other night. :D It was a log-in screen Easter Egg. If you type “Require Quarter” at the login screen and enter some password, it would say “Please insert 25 cents”~! How amusing! Developers really have such an interesting sense of humor including that on the log in screen. I had a bit of a problem with logging in though because it went quirky on me for a while.
From gadgets to gizmos, whether you do Windows, Linux, XBox, Playstation or Wii, old school hacker, lEE7 and n00b unite here on the Tech channel. We've got your back.
Recent Comments